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Mission Statement

As part of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Eye Institute’s mission is to “conduct and support research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs with respect to blinding eye diseases, visual disorders, mechanisms of visual function, preservation of sight, and the special health problems and requirements of the blind.”

Gene

Scientists funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI) report a novel gene therapy that halts vision loss in a canine model of a blinding condition called autosomal dominant retinitis pigmentosa (adRP). The strategy could one day be used to slow...

Gene therapy preserved vision in a study involving dogs with naturally occurring, late-stage retinitis pigmentosa, according to research funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The findings...

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a novel mouse model for the vision disorder Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), and found that they can use gene therapy to improve visual function in the mice. LHON is...

A delegation from the University of the Philippines (UP) and the Philippine National Institutes of Health recently visited NEI on May 21, 2015. It was an opportunity to renew old collaborations and discuss new ones—among them, genetic research...

The National Eye Institute (NEI) recently launched the first-ever human gene therapy trial for the vision disorder X-linked retinoschisis (XLRS). Researchers are conducting the trial at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Center...

Researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI) have described the functions of a gene responsible for anchoring cilia — sensory hair-like extensions present on almost every cell of the body. They show in a mouse model that without the gene...

Two groups of investigators have reported independently on their initial observations from Phase I clinical trials of gene transfer for Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA) caused by mutations in the RPE65 gene. The two papers appear in the April 27...

The National Eye Institute (NEI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is supporting a phase I clinical trial to assess the safety of gene transfer in treating people with a form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA). People with the LCA...